Ratings Breakdown

Key Specs

New York games developer Kaos Studios doesn't have many titles to its credit. Frontlines: Fuel of War, which was released in 2008, is the developer's only other release but you wouldn't be able to guess that after your first full experience with the recently released Homefront.

Starting the single-player campaign, you're shown a fairly detailed and believable video that sets up the storyline for the first person shooter (FPS). This extreme attention to detail continues as you progress through the game in terms of the game's storyline and visuals.

Homefront doesn't have the incredible polish of other recently released FPS titles (such as Crysis 2) in terms of pure visuals but it still does a brilliant job of shoving the story down your throat. The urban environments are highly detailed and effortlessly convince you that you're fighting in locales that were once home to hundreds of thousands of people - you see fully furnished and now ravaged homes, schools, playgrounds, freeways and much more. The only disappointing issue here is that while the environments are quite large, you have to follow a set path to progress.

The game's storyline is packed with emotion and there are tons of elements that highlight the temperament and mindset of people dealing with the pressures of war - you get to experience betrayal, courage, anger and a fair dose of fear. The game is a highly charged emotional rollercoaster and some of the scenes you come across show just why this game has a PEGI age rating of 18.

Even if you're a seasoned gamer Homefront is a fairly challenging game to play on the easy difficulty setting. Precision and cunning will see you through to victory and again this perfectly meshes with the fact that you, as a resistance fighter, don't have unlimited resources and loads of fellow soldiers to rely on. The title's shooting mechanics are solid as far as realism and gameplay are concerned; a few well placed shots will drop most enemies (and you) and there are no annoying glitches that get in your way. That said Homefront would have likely been a more engaging title had it featured a proper cover system.

Although a fairly well put together package Homefront does have a few kinks in its armour. Every so often textures took quite long to appear on screen so until they did, we had to cope with some very basic looking visuals. This happened mostly with our squad's appearances however so it didn't hugely impact gameplay. There's also almost too much of dialogue that you're forced to put up with despite the fact that it doesn't really have much relevance to what you're doing in game.

There are plenty of reasons to come back to Homefront, thanks to its multiplayer component. For the most part you'll engage in large-scale vehicular combat and, when you're pounding the ground on foot, there's a decent currency and upgrade system that will keep you entertained for hours.

For: Homefront will draw you into its virtual world on an emotional level. This is something most games just don’t do.

Against: Lots of pointless dialogue, basic visuals.

Verdict: While Homefront doesn’t break any new ground, what it offers packs a mighty punch. It’s easily one of 2011’s more memorable games.